Ward 3 Councillor Matthew Green has introduced a notice of motion to establish a Vision Zero-style commitment to road safety in Hamilton, particularly for people walking and cycling, who are among the city's most vulnerable road users.

Ghost bike on Claremont Access as a memorial to Jay Keddy, who was killed on December 2, 2015 (RTH file photo)

The motion, if approved by Council, would call on the City to implement a "comprehensive plan to improve road safety" including a review of current city policies, a study of best practices and Vision Zero principles, enhanced analysis of traffic collision data, and a reporting system to track progress.

Deadly-by-Design Street System

Hamilton had 18 traffic fatalities last year, of whom eight were people on foot and one was a person riding a bike. The high rate of pedestrian and cyclist fatalities puts Hamilton sharply at odds with Provincial and National trends.

A 2013 report by the Social Planning and Research Council found that Hamilton is the second most dangerous city in Ontario for walking, with an injury risk 42 percent higher than the Provincial average. Hamilton's injury risk for cyclists is 81 percent higher than the Provincial average.

Those dangerous high speeds are reflected in mobileradar measurements showing speeds in excess of 90 km/h - even on local residential streets.

Just yesterday, Hamilton police caught a driver going 141 km/h on a residential street with a 40 km/h speed limit - an insane speed that would be physically impossible to achieve on a street that was designed for safety.

A recentspate of pedestrian collisions and fatalities, particularly late last year, has spurred a burgeoning community demand for Hamilton to take traffic safety more seriously and commit to principles that have dramatically reduced injury and fatality rates in other jurisdictions.

Senior citizens and children - the most vulnerable road users - are disproportionately represented among the pedestrian casualties on Hamilton streets.

Goal of Zero Traffic Fatalities

In 1997, Sweden adopted Vision Zero, a commitment to eliminating all traffic fatalities. Since then, the country has managed to reduce its traffic fatality fate from 7 per 100,000 to fewer than 3 per 100,000.

Vision Zero takes a novel approach to traffic safety. Instead of the standard behavioural approach of telling people to be more careful and attempting to enforce rules - sometimes referred to as the "train-and-blame" approach - Vision Zero starts by accepting that people are not perfect and will make mistakes.

From there, the goal becomes ensuring that when mistakes inevitably occur, they do not result in tragedy. As such, the primary limiting design guideline for streets becomes the capacity of the human body to survive trauma.

For example, it is well-established that in collisions where a vehicle moving at 30 km/h strikes a pedestrian, the fatality rate is 5 percent. At 48 km/h, the fatality rate increases to 45 percent, and at 64 km/h, the fatality rate is a staggering 85 percent.

Applying Vision Zero

A Vision Zero approach to street safety entails creating dedicated, protected space on the street for walking and cycling so that the most vulnerable road users are physically separated from the most dangerous objects on the street - moving vehicles.

In Hamilton, most streets do not have bike lanes - the cyclist who was killed last year was riding on the Claremont Access, which has no cycling infrastructure - and most of the lanes we do have are just painted lines, not physically protected from vehicle traffic.

Worse, the city's bike lanes tend to disappear altogether through intersections, which is where various modes come into contact and the risk of collisions is highest.

An example is the intersection of York Boulevard and Dundurn Street, where there is no obvious way for a cyclist to turn from York onto Dundurn without merging into mixed vehicle traffic.

No obvious way to turn from York bike lane onto Dundurn bike lane (RTH file photo)

Strategic Road Safety Program

Presumably, this motion will also incorporate the City's Strategic Road Safety Program, which was re-established in 2014 with funding from the Red Light Camera program.

That program has a fairly modest but progressive mandate to adjust crosswalks for longer crossing times, add crosswalks and pedestrian crossovers (PXOs) at low-volume intersections, enhance crosswalks with ladder crossings, and review the city's existing speed limit policy (with a default unsigned speed of 50 km/h).

The Strategic Road Safety Program is an acknowledgement that the City needs to shift its thinking away from the status quo of maximizing vehicle speed and volume, and toward a more comprehensive model of safe, inclusive streets for everyone.

With John Mater, currently the Director of Transportation in the Public Works department, soon to succeed retiring Public Works General Manager Gerry Davis as acting GM, this may be an excellent opportunity to accelerate the culture change in Public Works that has been progressing far too slowly until now.

Text of the Motion

Following is the text of the motion.

City of Hamilton

Notice of Motion

Moved by Councillor: Matthew Green

City Council direct the General Manager, Transportation Services, in consultation with other City divisions, as appropriate, to report to the Public Works committee in coordination with the Transportation Master Plan, with a comprehensive plan to improve road safety, including but not limited to:

a) A review of best practice from comparable jurisdictions, including Vision Zero;

b) A review of existing City policies, strategies and guidelines that touch on road safety;

c) An enhanced analysis of City-wide traffic collision data;

d) Specific recommendations to improve road safety, particularly for pedestrians and cyclists, over the short, medium and long terms;

Ryan McGreal, the editor of Raise the Hammer, lives in Hamilton with his family and works as a programmer, writer and consultant. Ryan volunteers with Hamilton Light Rail, a citizen group dedicated to bringing light rail transit to Hamilton. Ryan wrote a city affairs column in Hamilton Magazine, and several of his articles have been published in the Hamilton Spectator. His articles have also been published in The Walrus and HuffPost. He maintains a personal website, has been known to share passing thoughts on Twitter and Facebook, and posts the occasional cat photo on Instagram.

By KevinLove (registered) | Posted January 19, 2016 at 15:59:19
in reply to Comment 116158

Except that the motion does not include an "implementation plan with funding strategy." That is up to the "General Manager, Transportation Services, in consultation with other City divisions, as appropriate."

As anyone who has ever seen the show "Yes, Minister" can attest, that is an opportunity for bureaucrats to undermine the intent of the motion. Of course, that would never actually happen in Hamilton...

While it's nice to see, I feel sick to my stomach that we keep needing to study the obvious to death, only to have nothing actually done to improve the situation. How many more reports need to be written? The recommendations have been made a thousand times over, on this website alone. It's a waste of time to "enhance analysis" when we already know what needs to be done. I'm tired of this.

The impetus is on many people to bring it further in a sensible way that meets everybody's needs. Let's even at least be as aggressive as New York City is in finding ways to satisfy cars & bikes, while achieving #VisionZero.

As an example, take a look at this NYCDOT PDF (New York City Department Of Transportation) for their proposed bike improvements to a road in New York City (ironically, called "Amsterdam Avenue").

An example of how 1-way road can become nicer for bikes/pedestrians too, done in a way without drivers feeling too inconvenienced.

Obviously, I personally don't think it applies to Hamilton (keeping Main 1-way) due to the much lower density of Hamilton, given New York City swells to 3 million. I really think traffic engineering can sufficiently divert cars and not delay drivers (including me!!) too much, while also bringing the social/economic benefits of the upcoming LRT in a tamer corridor.

However, I say to point this out, even New York City's crossings on 1-way streets are much frlendlier than ours.

As a 2-way advocate myself, I am pragmatic here: It's a nod to an acknowledgement that 1-way streets can be improved, if it's the right street, in the right circumstances. A good 1-way design is often better than a botched-up 2-way street, but I really think Main/King should be more normal arterials and not urban expressways. And it is wholly possible that Main could be a staged generational conversion project, which might, possibly include a friendlier 1-way option as an interim step, as one of the possible many scenarios I acknowledge could in theory happen...

By ergopepsi (registered) | Posted February 25, 2016 at 21:05:06
in reply to Comment 116631

I think Keesmaat is a real treasure for Toronto. It was a shame that mayor Tory wouldn't implement her vision for the Gardiner. Again, re-enforces the idea that politicians should be required to leave the planning to the professionals.

I also like the idea of alternating one ways to prevent cut through traffic. That could work all the way down Locke and Queen with Homewood / Stanley / Herkimer / Charlton alternating.

This is not exactly on point but I love the statistics aspect of this. Today in the Go section of the Spec was story that show that the long term studies now in prove that at home midwife assisted birthing more than doubles the mortality rate of newborns. my suspicion as to why this is not a front page story is that it is because the number is up by 2/100,000. In other words, you can say that the death rate is double, but is remains very small. Similarly in Hamilton, if you halved the death ate of cyclists and pedestrians spending millions of dollars to do so, you might save 4 lives per year - or less than 1/100,000. If it went to zero it would be 8. or about .75.

I say reduce the speed limit in some areas, increase it in others and use photo radar with points (like in the UK.) People will slow down and pay attention when you put their licenses at risk. Continue to make reasonable accommodation for bicycle traffic.

I am all for zero death. But at what expense? And can we really get there? And not to be too cheeky, as per @JasonL in a comment above, what does Manhattan or Sweden have to do with Hamilton?

Comment edited by CharlesBall on 2016-01-20 10:01:53

No one believes more firmly than Comrade Napoleon that all animals are equal. He would be only too happy to let you make your decisions for yourselves. But sometimes you might make the wrong decisions, comrades, and then where should we be? George Orwell

By JasonL (registered) | Posted January 20, 2016 at 16:52:31
in reply to Comment 116180

I agree that we can, and should learn from the best practices in every city.
The "we're not Hamilton" comment was referring to the need for huge 1-way streets everywhere. We're 500,000 people, not 3.1 million.

By ergopepsi (registered) | Posted January 20, 2016 at 11:47:07
in reply to Comment 116180

I don't agree with the last sentence. I see this kind of comment frequently and it makes no sense to me. What does 'have to do with' really mean anyway? That's like responding with 'Whatever'.

Other cities are cities just like Hamilton is a city. They have roads and people just like Hamilton. Some of them have implemented different urban design ideas that maybe a city like Hamilton could adopt or adopt and modify. Why can't we look at examples from other cities to see what may or may not work for us?

Anyway, agree/disagree on last sentence is definitely a matter of interpretation -- if it's a "Whatever" tone then I disagree with that spirit -- but I chose to ignore the "whatever" aspect and merely interpret it literally on a GPS coordinates basis ;-)

By CharlesBall (registered) | Posted January 20, 2016 at 11:51:59
in reply to Comment 116182

I agree with you. That is why is was a cheeky comment. We should all look around to see what other people are doing.

No one believes more firmly than Comrade Napoleon that all animals are equal. He would be only too happy to let you make your decisions for yourselves. But sometimes you might make the wrong decisions, comrades, and then where should we be? George Orwell

By ergopepsi (registered) | Posted January 20, 2016 at 10:53:18
in reply to Comment 116172

I think you also have to factor in the improvement in quality of life for everyone and the attraction that 'complete street' upgrades have to investment. Spending the millions of dollars is not only applied towards saving a few lives. It also improves the environment for everyone in the city and encourages businesses and consumers to invest in urban areas.

There is no reason there should be any "stroads" west of Ottawa Street. Obviously there will still be cars on the road but neighbourhoods should be for the people that live there, not the people that want to drive through them at 90km hour.